Increasing two ball weight

Spydermann · Senior Member

Increasing two ball weight

Dougwe · Chief one feather

Simply put YES.

You must add the tow ball weight to the carrying capacity of the rear of your car.

If you speak to someone like Pedders they will be able to let you know the best way to go about a rear suspention upgrade and any increase in carrying capacity.

Dougwe · Chief one feather

Forgot to mention, make sure your tyres can take the weight as well.

Spydermann · Senior Member

Thanks Doug. I looked up Pedders earlier today. Got a branch near me so looks like a visit tomorrow. I was reminded about my ute tyres carrying capacity a few years ago but had forgotten.

About 40 years ago I actually blew the tyres on an old home-made 6x4 trailer with re-treaded cross-ply when I overloaded it and sped (tyres were rated at about 80kph).

PeterD · Guru

Spydermann wrote:
My BA XR6 ute can tow 1600kgs, has a carrying capacity in the tub of about 560kgs and a ball weight of 160kgs. The tow bar can take 2300kgs load & 160kgs ball weight.

Something strange here. Normally tow bars on Ford vehicles have a ball weight of 10% of the towing capacity. It is strange that you say "The tow bar can take 2300kgs load & 160kgs ball weight"

We are a bit light on info here. Is your vehicle an auto or manual? Manual Falcons are generally rated at 1600/160 kg and the autos 2300/230 kg. Ford also say "When fitted with Ford load levelling kit." Any good WDH will substitute for that kit.

The suspensions available from the "suspension specialists" do not increase the load carrying capacity of your ute. They just stiffen your rear suspension and are likely to turn your under-steer characteristics to over-steer if you don't stiffen the front suspension as well.

How have you calculated your carrying capacity of 400 kg. Generally the loading capacity of Falcon utes is around 8-900kg depending upon model. This loading includes everything that adds weight to your vehicle. That includes driver, passenger, fuel, stuff in the cab, load in the tub, weight of tow bar, canopy or ute lid and the ball loading of the van. Also if you don't have WDH then the weight removed from the front wheels when you couple the van (remember the front rises when you hitch the van) is carried by the rear axle. That weight transfer will be the ratio of the ball overhang length to the Falcons wheel base. That will amount to +/- 50% of the ball weight extra weight on the rear wheels. You may have to subtract a lot of that extra weight from the loading in the tub to reduce rear axle loading.

The following diagram demonstrates the effect of using and not using WDH.

HR WDH display.jpg

Spydermann · Senior Member

PeterD.

My mistake. Should have been 2300/230kg.

The XR6/8 utes only have a capacity of 1200/120 for the manual and 1600/160 for the auto. Hayman Reese appear to only make a 1250/125 goose neck and a 2300/230 hitch. Hence the "overkill".

Tyres are OK as they are 97 rated (730kg) so I should be able to cope with 1460kg in my tub + tow ball. Need 560kg plus 825kg (50% of vehicle tare) = 1385kg. Reality is rear distribution is more like 40% and I'd probably never have more than 360kg between ball weight & what is stored in the ute tub (1060kg total).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code

Thanks for that chart. I saw a youtube video from Hardings on fitting a WDH that I was going to watch again. Your chart reinforces the video. I used have to do that towing a camper trailer behind a front-wheel drive.

Aus-Kiwi · Guru

Stivening rear suspension will promote oversteer .. Which they tend to do anyway..
But your not driving to the limits to set the vehicle up for hard driving ..

Quanger · Veteran Member

Heavy duty shockers will not help as shockers are not designed to actually carry weight, they are only there to dampen the springs effect on the ride, sure, pump up shockers carry some weight but the vehicle's shocker mounting points are not designed to be true load carrying points so that's why these are actually a bad idea. Air bags between the axle & chassis are also a bad idea, really the only way to increase the load capacity is to have the leaf springs reworked maybe with an extra leaf fitted.